As the world's population expands and its economy increases, the use of fossil fuels is becoming more and more prevalent in both developed and developing nations. With the supply of fossil fuels being limited, the cost of fossil fuels look to increase dramatically over the coming years. Besides being in limited supply, fossil fuels also are a leading cause pollution and are a major contributor to global warming.
Due to the problems associated with fossil fuels, considerable attention is being directed at finding alternatives to fossil fuels. An alternative fuel that has great potential as a viable replacement for fossil fuels is hydrogen. While the world's oil reserves are being rapidly depleted, the supply of hydrogen remains virtually unlimited. Hydrogen may be produced from coal, natural gas and other hydrocarbons, or formed by the electrolysis of water. Moreover hydrogen may be produced without the use of fossil fuels via electrolysis of water powered by nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, wind, or solar energy. Hydrogen has the highest density of energy per unit weight of any chemical fuel and is essentially non-polluting since the main by-product of burning hydrogen is water. Hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe. Hydrogen may provide an inexhaustible, clean source of energy for our planet which may be produced by various processes.
Hydrogen is currently being used to power fuel cells and hydrogen internal combustion engines. Fuel cells or hydrogen internal combustion engines may be used in mobile applications, such as powering a vehicle, or in stationary applications, such as power generators.
To propel hydrogen to the forefront as a viable replacement for fossil fuels, hydrogen must be in a readily available supply to hydrogen consuming applications. To make hydrogen readily available, a hydrogen infrastructure allowing for the convenient distribution of hydrogen to end users is essential. Described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,305,442, entitled “A Hydrogen-based Ecosystem” filed on Nov. 22, 1999 for Ovshinsky, et al., is a complete hydrogen infrastructure system for the generation, storage, transportation, and distribution of hydrogen. While U.S. Pat. No. 6,305,442 provides for a complete hydrogen infrastructure, there is still room for improvements to further develop many aspects of the hydrogen infrastructure. One such aspect is in the area of mobile hydrogen generation and supply systems. Described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,745,801, entitled “Mobile Hydrogen Generation And Supply System” is a mobile hydrogen generation and supply system which generates hydrogen or a hydrogen-containing intermediate from one or more hydrogen precursors and offloads the hydrogen or hydrogen-containing intermediate to hydrogen receiving facility. While the mobile supply system provides hydrogen to a receiving facility, the system does not provide for the distribution of hydrogen to end users such as vehicles. While hydrogen infrastructures and hydrogen delivery systems have been developed there is still a need for improvements which may further improve the availability of hydrogen to end users such as vehicles and other hydrogen consuming applications.